This invention relates to electronic games, and specifically to commercial transaction games involving stocks, commodities or other financial assets, and music identification games.
There are games that achieve the representation of random events through a deck of cards that are shuffled and then drawn sequentially throughout the game. These games have the advantage of being easy to use, and also allow some information to be known in advance by only one player by opportunities for selective viewing by the player. On the other hand, electronic games, such as computer or microprocessor based games, use random number generator programs to generate sequences that are then applied to a series of events, and thereby provide random occurrence of the events. Such electronic games also allow electronic interpretation of the event or information. However, this method is often not representative of standard game play, plus it does not conveniently allow for one player to preview information as does card oriented information. It is a purpose of this invention to provide a method by which information can be contained on cards, yet be supplied to an electronic system for electronic processing.
There are many examples in the prior art of stock market games. These games range from simple board games that do not adequately represent the underlying forces that cause markets to move, or electronic games that are unduly complex and do not allow for persons not versed in the market to participate. Furthermore, both these types of games do not reflect how both "fundamental" and "technical" factors affect markets. As used herein "fundamental" factors refer to cause and effect relationships between events and stock market prices, and "technical" factors refer to mathematical relationships made between the varying prices of the same item over a period of time and/or between prices of different items. It is a purpose of this invention to provide a game which reflects the effects of both fundamental and technical factors on the market.